Mom Pineapple, She's a Crafty One

One of my favorite gifts I got at my bridal shower was made by Mom Pineapple, a dress shopping scrapbook.

Way back before I was a bee, my folks and bridesmaids flew from all over the east coast to go dress shopping with me. I didn't want to plan the weekend before March because Pittsburgh winters can be messy. However, I didn't want to wait too long just in case the dress would take a while to arrive. So March it was. I was wrong about the weather being okay. Almost every flight was delayed and our neighborhood (home to the steepest streets in the world) was covered in ice.
After we got everyone to the house and fed were we able to actually have some fun in the snow. Kim and Lindsay, from Florida, I am pretty confident enjoyed the snow the most. We built a snowman with stubby arms (thanks to Kim) and ears. Then my sister decided the snowman needed a heart and hair made from strawberry syrup.
He looked like he was impaled.

Then first thing Saturday morning we went David's Bridal, the only store we ended up visiting. After an hour and fifteen minutes I had my gown.
Having all of my best friends go shopping with me was a wonderful experience. It really meant a lot to me and now, thanks to my mom, I have a lovely book to remember the weekend by.

Were you able to bring your bridal party dress shopping with you?

Love Again: Rehearsal Dinner Gifts

At our rehearsal dinner, after a quick thank you and explanation of the RD location, Mr. Pineapple and I gave our bridal party small tokens of our appreciation.

all photos copyright Mingwei Tay

I made the lovely ladies rose colored freshwater pearl necklaces and matching earrings. The clasps are my favorite part of the necklaces, copper roses. Everyone seemed to genuinely love them and even though it was up to them, all five wore their new jewelry the next day. (Apparently I am not cut out to be a jeweler because Sister Pineapple's necklace broke during the reception. I'll shelf that career along with cake decorator.)

I also bought the girls each a wrap to wear the next day. We were planning on taking photos outside and mother nature was planning on 50 degrees. I choose 5 wraps in 5 different colors that I thought each girl would like the best.

I made my sister a wild teal hair flower on a headband to match her teal wrap. She looked like Kenley from project runway.

The last gift I want to share is one given to us by Bridesmaid Katie.
She framed our invitation and made paper quilled flowers out of the additional cards that came along with our invite. This was a perfect gift for someone who cared about the details as much as I did. Thank you Katie!

Love Again: Rehearsal Dinner

all photos copyright Mingwei Tay

After our rehearsal we headed over to the bar/restaurant where Mr. Pineapple went on our first date. (Although we didn't know it was a date at the time.) Smokin' Joe's Saloon was just a couple blocks from where both Mr. P and I lived at the time and we met there after work almost every day, no joke. So this little bar with the best condiments I have ever had and 60 beers on tap became our home away from home.

Ew! Mom and Dad! hehe

Best Man Erik and Phil

This is managaer Mike, whitness of our relationship since day one.

I was a little unsure about our choice to have our rehearsal dinner at a bar at first. Once we arrived, I was so glad we did. Everyone had a blast, Mike the manager even moved the table out of the way so we could practice our line dancing for the next day. It was a wonderfully laid back way to celebrate and pay tribute to the place where it all began.

Are you having an untraditional rehearsal dinner?

Love Again: The Rehearsal

When Carnegie Mellon student, Mingwei Tay, e-mailed me to see if he could shoot our wedding my hands were tied. We had already hired a photography duo with a single photographer clause in their contract. This clause is super smart because if several people are trying to take photos as you are it can make the process very difficult. When we met with one of the photographers, Tammy, I asked if there were any chance Mingwei could take photos for his portfolio. She thought it was a great idea for him to get some experience and I knew we had made the right choice of photographers. (So yep, we had three photographers with us at our wedding. Overkill, you bet. Guests joked that they were our paparazzi.)

Mingwei has already given me a DVD of photos from both our rehearsal and wedding day, but I am going to wait to share the latter with you until I have all the pro-pics, so you don't have to sit through two recaps. Until then, the rehearsal!
Meet Emily, the much loved event coordinator for the Rivers Club.

Sister Pineapple practicing her walk down the aisle and looking like me. Creepy.

That's my dear ol' dad and I ready for our walk. I wore the dress from our first wedding and a jacket to dress it down a bit. I am considering even have it dyed black so it is even more re-wearable. What do you think?

Mr. P looking very serious. Not a look seen too often from him.

All of the gents lined up. Apparently this is the part where I took over for Emily.

The wonderful Judge Mary Jane Bowes. Not only was she no longer obligated to officiate our wedding since we were already wed, but she certainly didn't have to attend the rehearsal. She was the perfect fit for us. She was chic and witty, keeping everyone on their toes.

Practicing gazing lovingly into Mr. Pineapple's eyes, an easy task.

Mr. P and I chose to hold hands throughout the ceremony.

Meanwhile our parents are looking concerned. This is Mr. P's dad and stepmother, Sandi. Maybe they were just getting hungry.
This is my mom doing what she does best, asking my dad a question. I would bet $5 that she said something along the lines of "Mark, what if we forgot to _______." She is the only one I know who worries more than I do. Luckily, because of my mom's many lists I'm pretty sure we didn't forget a thing.

Next up, grub and libations!

Are you planning on having a camera handy for your rehearsal and dinner?

The Rivers Club: Venue Review

When Mr. Pineapple and I first started looking for venues we did most of our search online. We stumbled upon the Rivers Club, in downtown Pittsburgh, and set up an appointment not expecting much. When we met with the coordinator, Emily, we were very impressed. She was kind and up front with us about their pricing. (The only other place we visited was very reluctant to tell us the bottom line, one they did we could tell why.) After looking around for a couple more days and not finding something as nice and as simple as the Rivers Club we put down our deposit.


Emily the Event Coordinator
I liked the Rivers Club, but I didn't love the Rivers Club until the day of our wedding. Everything was absolutely perfect. We were able to get in first thing in the morning to begin setting up the reception. Emily had offered to do all the set-up herself, but I felt guilty leaving it all up to one person and I figured I DIY'ed everything else, why not the set up too? Plus I had the help of all my lovely bridesmaids and Momma P's help.

Once four o'clock drew closer Emily was always by my side. Everything went shockingly well. I don't know how she did it, but somehow she was in a thousand places at one time. All of those little things that didn't get done before we started getting ready were magically perfect. If there was something that went wrong, I had no idea.


The Rivers Club Staff
After the ceremony Mr. P and I were introduced to the woman who would be our server for the evening. She was the first of the incredible wait staff that we were to meet that evening. This was one of the things were heard the most that evening "I cannot believe how nice everyone is here." Free-Jay DJ Mike even got a few of them out on the dance floor.


The Accommodations
Included in our per person cost was the food, open bar, cake, dance floor, speakers and mic, and reception/ceremony set-up. This made it really easy for us, we ended up only needing one other vendor the day of our wedding. The best part of all the accommodations was that there was no minimum. When our estimated guest list went from 110 to 70 we were still treated like we were the most important couple to ever be married there.

Final Grade: A+

Rivers Club
One Oxford Centre
301 Grant Street, Suite 411
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
412-391-5227 ext 262
412-391-5016 fax
http://www.riversclubevents.com/

What are you looking forward to most about your venue?

FAQs -- Pineapple Perspective

Now that we have done the whole wedding kit 'n kaboodle not just once, but twice. I thought it may be helpful to give my perspective on some of the wedding questions/topics I see often around the hive. Of course every wedding is different, but much of what seems like the norm on the knot, just didn't happen that way for us.

The Guest List
One of the first and most daunting wedding tasks for us was the guest list. We had no clue percentage of "yes" responses we should expect. Many of the articles I found estimated about 80-85% would be able to attend. Our number was more like 60%. I think there were a lot of factors that led to our little wedding, a big one being hard economic times for a lot of folks.

The Registry
We registered at what we thought were two very accessible stores, Macy's and Target. Turns out, not so much. Neither store was within 30 miles of the two towns much of our family lives in. However we weren't really interested in registering at Wal*Mart and Sears so what can you do. Even though we didn't receive much off of our registry we did take advantage of the post wedding 10% discount both stores offered. Macy's was the less popular of the two and only one or two guests used our registry there.

Bridal Party Attire
This is a new trend more than an FAQ I suppose, but it worked out wonderfully for us. All of our ladies wore different tea-length black dresses. They were made from different fabrics, varied in length but all look fabulous. The boys all wore different gray suits. Some were dark, some were light, one was even rented from a costume shop. Yet all the boys looked dashing.

Having an "Adult Reception"
This was an easy decision for Mr. P and I, we wanted a small wedding and who doesn't want a night out on the town child-free every once in a while? Some of our family was shocked by this idea and a little put off. (One VERY much so, but we wont get into that.) In the end we stuck to our guns. We only have a few friends and family members that were invited that have kids. All were able to find sitters and a couple of them came up to me during the reception to tell me how great it was to have a "grown-up" night out.

What were some of the things that surprised you about your wedding?

Erg! Adventures in Gown Preservation

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Last week I took my gown to David's Bridal to have it cleaned and preserved by a third party. This morning I woke up in a panic. My grandmother made a hand kerchief for my mom to carry when my folks were married. I pinned the same hankey under my gown on our wedding day. Well, guess who forgot to take out the hankey before shipping off her dress? Ugh.

The hankey is more important to me than my gown so I am kicking myself, hard. I called the preservation place and they said my gown was not yet entered into their system. In order to find it in their shipping dock I would need the UPS tracking number. Of course, my luck, David's didn't give me my copy of the tracking slip so they have no record of the number either.

My options were either to call the preservation folks back every day and hope to catch my gown in between being entered in their system and being cleaned. Or to just have them ship it back to me in all its poofy dirty glory. I chose the latter. Now the tricky part is no one knows where my gown is exactly. It is probably in with the 200 gowns the preservation place receives per day. In a box, under hundreds of other identical boxes. They took down my information and said when they enter my dress in their system they will just ship it to my home as is. Fingers crossed.

The manager at David's who helped me resolve my alterations issues back in the day was once again very helpful. It was their mistake not to give me the tracking info, but I am the one who made the bigger mistake of leaving the hankey in my dress to begin with. She said that once I get my gown back and retrieve the hankey, just to bring it back into the store and they will ship it out again for free.

I am a goober.

UPDATE: Already! Mary Ann, the woman who I called 3 times ths morning in a panic, just called me. She went out back to see which gowns were being checked in and guess what? They had my box in their hands! She retrieved my hankey and is going to ship it back to me today. She said she will call back with all the tracking info. Sweet!

Sometimes people are so freakin' helpful and I love them.

Am I alone in my gown preservation blunder?

The Secret Life of Bees (Pineapple Edition)

I tried and tried and tried to think of a nice juicy secret to share with the hive, but alas I am boring. So instead I will share with you a big part of my life that you have never seen, our home. I am the mover of all movers and shakers. Between May 2006 and August 2008 I lived in 6 homes. When Mr. Pineapple landed his dream job in his home town, we once again began the familiar search for a home. We were having a hard time finding a place big enough for our 3 cats, dog and the two of us plus all of our stuff (I don't know where it all came from). Then a friend of Mr. P's told us her folks rented a house on a farm that was soon to be vacant. The monthly rent was way out of our price range, but amazingly her folks dropped the rent hundreds of dollars to fit within our budget.

When we first visited the home it was in pretty rough shape. The carpets were horrible and smelly. There were cigarette butts in the radiators and random holes in the floors put in by the former tenants. It also looked as though it hadn't be cleaned in years. The walls were in really bad shape too. Most of the wall were a dingy off-white and the hall way was wallpapered, dirty and peeling. Apparently the folks who lived there before us didn't care about keeping the house nice. So, Mr. P and I spent every weekend before moving in helping the landlord and his friend fix up the house. Enough jibber jabber and onto the (after) photos...
The house is 4 (little) bedrooms and 1.5 baths, but we turned one bedroom into a closet and one into a studio.

The windows on the left are the living room:
Does that painting look familiar? It was the inspiration for our wedding invitation design. The coffee table houses four ottomans which are great for extra seating. The colors in this room are pretty wacky, but much better than the white they once were.
All the floors in the house are painted either brown or red.
This is where Princess Zazu spends all day everyday.
Our rarely used dining room. Mr. Pineapple picked out this table, I love the bench because I can picture our kids kneeling over the table and working on craft projects.

Our kitchen is bright and a little messy, but I'm okay with that:
The chair on the left is where Harrison spends all day everyday waiting for someone to accidentally leave the bread on the counter for more than 15 seconds so he can eat it all.
This door leads to one of three porches surrounding the house.
This is the half bath downstairs that we pretty much only use as a place to store our vacuum. Check out how close the wall is to the toilet. You have to hug the wall to sit down, good design.
This stairwell may not look like much but it was a huge project. Dad Pineapple and I put new drywall up on the green walls to cover what were once wallpapered and very damaged.

At the top of the stairs if the most important room in our house (in my opinion). It is my studio where I spend all day designing invitations and of course blogging.
The rug is there because Rooney the puppy kept eating the paint off the floor. Dad Pineapple and I made my desk from a door. It is just big enough for my laptop, printer and a little TV.
Studio storage, job white board and Rooney's food.

Okay, brace yourself. Our closet:
What a mess! Oh well. This used to be a bedroom, but we converted it to a closet because the few closets in the house are too shallow to put hangers in.

Across from the closet is the bathroom/laundry room.

Next up is "the wedding room"
This room never got painted or used for that matter for anything other than storage for wedding stuff. As you can see, even after the wedding it is full of junk. I have been avoiding this organization project like the plague.
Now onto our cozy little bedroom:
Our bedding was a shower gift from Mom Pineapple. In the bottom right corner is Rooney's bed, he eats out of bird dishes when we are away.
The photo above our bed is bow bridge in Central Park, where Mr. Pineapple proposed. To the left is a squirrel lamp that Sister P gave us as an engagement present.

Last but not least is our water:
The blocks on the right used to be the foundation for a spring house. Back in the days before refrigeration a natural spring fed the house and kept all perishables cold. Now the spring feeds our entire house. It is the best water I have ever tasted, plus is is clean and free which is amazing.

So now you have seen my secret of life of having a life outside of wedding planning.